Food And Wine - Day 1

Today we got up and had our breakfast, as we had a lot of things to accomplish. We wanted to make sure we were in Epcot when it opened - to be sure we got the Pandora Food and Wine special charm, and to get our stamps for the passholder wine glass (free if you attend the festival for three days). So we headed out (our hotel is walking distance from Epcot) and started our day.

Our first stop was for the Pandora charm. We were fourth in line, and became quite entertained by those ahead of us. Such as the two women who were in an argument with the Pandora cast lady clerk. They two ladies were adamant about the Minnie spacer. The claimed that it was red with white dots, but the one lady clerk was showing them was not the right one - it was white dots over red (or some minute difference - they looked the same to me). They kept arguing with the clerk lady until she grabbed the entire sack of Minnie spacers to show them that these were indeed the only Minnie spacers available. Unfortunately, they were still unconvinced and left.

And then there was the lady who purchased her charm and wanted the clerk lady to put the charm on her bracelet. Now this is not a difficult maneuver - even a preschooler can thread a bead. But this lady asked if the clerk lady could bead her charm - if her line wasn't too long. Clerk Lady looked up and said yes, she had a long line. Which the purchaser lady could have figured out, had she looked around and noticed the 15 or so people in line behind her ...

Anyhow, we managed to get our charm without any fanfare (probably because we were satisfied with the one we desired and did not need the clerk lady to put it on our bracelet). Next we headed to the Festival Center to get the guides for our wine glass stamp. While there, we made friends with the Cutco Representative Lady (and maybe bought a knife or two) and scored some free Ghirardelli chocolate squares. We perused the event merchandise (without purchasing any) and found out that we had to go elsewhere for the wine glass stamps - that wouldn't be available for another hour or so.

We decided to ride Soarin', which was good as usual, except for the small blips on the screen - perhaps it's time to clean up the video feed, Epcot! After that, it was time to stand in the blazing hot sun for our stamps. Oh, did I mention it felt like it was about 900 degrees and the sun was directly blazing on us? Eventually we got the guide and got it stamped, and then it was time for World Showcase to open and time to sample the food!

Our plan was simple - each one of us would visit a kiosk, purchase the main dishes, and then we would meet up and sample all the dishes. I would describe all that we munched on, but by this point, the heat and the sun and the crowds (there were about 980 gazillion people) and the long lines to get the food pretty much were sapping our willpower. We ate at about four or five kiosks, then decided we had had enough and headed back to our room.

Once there, Molly decided to take a siesta, while KB and I went out. She was on a mission to get some Nine West boots that she had seen in Gatlinburg but didn't get, and I needed to pick up our race stuff for the 5K we were planning to do tomorrow (I know - it was a weak moment when we signed up). We managed to accomplish our tasks, and returned to the room to check on Molly.

She had recovered, so we left again to get dinner (we were not going to try to tackle Food and Wine again today, since we had heard that some of the kiosks were running out of food due to the crowds). We ate at Shake Shack and then went to the movies to see "The Intern." We liked the movie (except for the abrupt ending) and headed back to our room to sleep. Tomorrow we have a 5K and will try to tackle the Food and Wine again!

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Thankful today for: fun at the Food and Wine Festival; KB getting her boots and my picking up the race stuff; eavesdropping on other people's stories everywhere I went; Shake Shack and movie with KB and Molly